Archive for September, 2009

The death of Aleksey Baranovsky

The bleeding to death of Aleksey Baranovsky in the privately run Rye Hill prison is an outrage. It took him hours to die. He had repeatedly injured himself and was meant to be on a special watch to protect him.В 
Last year 60 prisoners took their own lives in prisons; an improvement on previous years but [...]

September 24, 2009  Tags:   Posted in: Prisons, Self-injuring  One Comment

Work in prison: different European models

I was invited to Helsinki to give a presentation to the Finnish prison service about work in prisons. One day of the annual conference was held in English with simultaneous interpretation and about 140 people attended including the head of the service and the minister.
I am quite obsessed with work in prisons, so I found [...]

September 23, 2009  Tags: ,   Posted in: International, Prisons, Rehabilitation, Uncategorized  3 Comments

A machine for murder

The lawyer giving a description of the botched execution in Ohio turned my stomach this morning.В  The Guardian reports that Romell Broom, who was convicted of murder 25 years ago and has spent all that time on death row, was handed a toilet roll by staff to wipe away his tears after two hours on [...]

September 18, 2009  Tags:   Posted in: Sentencing  One Comment

Prisoner blog creating a stir

A serving prisoner has started his own blog and this appears to be creating quite a stir with the authorities doing their best to stop him. I am not going to comment on the content and what he is saying. The point is that prisoners have a right to be able to contact the outside [...]

September 15, 2009  Tags:   Posted in: Inside prisons, Prisons  One Comment

Back from the Council of Europe conference

Every two years the Council of Europe organises a conference to bring together the heads of prison services in its 47 member nations. This year it was held jointly with the Scottish Prison Service in Edinburgh last week. I gave a speech about work in prisons during the session on long term prisoners along with [...]

September 14, 2009  Tags: ,   Posted in: International, Prisons  3 Comments

The age of criminal responsibility

The Brunel University research on public attitudes to wrongdoing and possible revision of the Ghosh test used in courts as a universal assumption that we all subscribe to a shared view raised some really interesting issues. It seems that we, the public, have a more clearly defined sense of right and wrong when we are [...]

September 7, 2009  Tags:   Posted in: Children and young people, Uncategorized  3 Comments

What happens on release matters

The two boys about to be sentenced to long terms of custody by an adult criminal court will be detained in local authority secure children’s homes.В  There has been a lot of media coverage about their backgrounds and the horrible crime itself, but my concern is what is going to happen to them next.В 
The case [...]

September 4, 2009  Tags: ,   Posted in: Children and young people, Rehabilitation  8 Comments

The future role for prison officers

Back from holiday and straight into the television and radio studios promoting our report on the future role for prison officers. There has been some misunderstanding about what we are suggesting. We would like to see a vocational degree level course developed over the coming years that would benefit all new entrant prison officers. The [...]

September 2, 2009  Tags: ,   Posted in: Inside prisons, Prison officers, Prisons  6 Comments